以身化梦：意象体现的理论、方法与技术探析

“意象体现”是由罗伯特·伯尼克依据分析心理学的理论创立的一种“梦的工作”方法,主张在介于意识与无意识之间的阈限状态中采用积极想象的方式对梦中意象进行再体验,通过对不同身体感受的觉知使无意识内容意识化来达到相应的治疗效果。意象体现理论主张,梦具有真实性,应当以主客体一致性的隐喻视角来看待梦,并且对梦的工作具有治疗的意义;对梦的工作应当遵循非解析工作与体验科学、阈限状态、共验交流、心理自居与发生转换四个关键原则。其具体技术过程包括工作状态的准备、进入阈限状态、对梦进行持续性体验、心理自居与发生转换、感觉融合与离开梦境五步。其方法沿革于催眠术、自由联想与积极想象。作为分析心理学中有关梦的一套前沿的思想理论以及临床心理治疗中一种创新性的梦的工作方式,意象体现具有广阔的学术研究及实际应用前景。     

A significant "dream within a dream"

This brief clinical note is an attempt to clarify Freud's remarks regarding the significance of real occurrences of the "dream within a dream". There is affirmation of the reality of an actual event in the manifest dream (the "tickling" in adolescence). Certain representations regarding real events are alluded to in the manifest dream and are confirmed by the latent dream thoughts (the underlying homosexual theme involving the patient's mother and herself). Within the ongoing transference neurosis, a new understanding led this patient to experience intense sexual affects which were recalled for the first time during the course of an analytic session. The analyst's attention to this "dream within a dream" led to a facilitating active interpretation of the repressed sexual feelings. At the same time it was possible to observe a developmental arrest which had interfered with the consolidation of the patient's adolescent maturation begin to be undone by interpretation. The process of disengaging the patient from her unconscious bond with her mother (the undoing of the negative oedipal involvement) had been set in motion. The "dream within a dream" seems to represent a special defensive effort of the dream work to encapsulate the memory of one or more related actual events and the intense affects associated with them--affects whose pressure for discharge threaten to arouse the sleeper. The form the dream assumes is related to its hidden sexual origins and engages the active participation of both patient and analyst.     

Testing the implicit processing hypothesis of precognitive dream experience

Seemingly precognitive (prophetic) dreams may be a result of one’s unconscious processing of environmental cues and having an implicit inference based on these cues manifest itself in one’s dreams. We present two studies exploring this implicit processing hypothesis of precognitive dream experience. Study 1 investigated the relationship between implicit learning, transliminality, and precognitive dream belief and experience. Participants completed the Serial Reaction Time task and several questionnaires. We predicted a positive relationship between the variables. With the exception of relationships between transliminality and precognitive dream belief and experience, this prediction was not supported. Study 2 tested the hypothesis that differences in the ability to notice subtle cues explicitly might account for precognitive dream beliefs and experiences. Participants completed a modified version of the flicker paradigm. We predicted a negative relationship between the ability to explicitly detect changes and precognitive dream variables. This relationship was not found. There was also no relationship between precognitive dream belief and experience and implicit change detection.     

Minding the Dreamer Within: An Experimental Study on the Effects of Enhanced Dream Recall on Creative Thinking

Several studies have found an association between frequency of dream recall and creativity. We tested the hypothesis that training individuals to increase dream recall by means of a daily dream log would increase scores on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT). One hundred twenty‐five participants completed a baseline measure of creativity (TTCT, figural version) as well as of dream recall, dissociation, thinness of psychological boundaries, mindful‐attention awareness, and well‐being. Participants were randomly allocated to two groups: the experimental group (n = 55) received a daily dream log; while the control group (n = 32) received a similarly phrased log registering memories of a vivid episode from the previous day. After 27 days, all participants completed follow‐up measurements identical to those at baseline. A non‐randomized non‐intervention group (n = 35) was used to test for practice effects on the TTCT. There was significant selective increase for the “creative strengths” component, which was only observed in the experimental group. There were significant correlations between creativity and dissociation as well as between creativity and thinness of psychological boundaries. Enhanced dream recall through daily dream logging fosters aspects of creativity. Associations between creativity, dissociation, and thinness of boundaries, suggest that increased awareness to dreams increases creativity through a “loosening” of stereotyped thinking pattern.     

Reliability and validity of the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale (SCORS) in the assessment of dream narratives

In this study, we aimed to investigate the application of an externally rated measure of interpersonal representations (Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale [SCORS]; Westen, 1995) to dream narratives. A total of 80 student participants enrolled at a private university in the New York City metropolitan area completed a Dream Log and affect adjective checklist (Wellman, 2002) based on a recalled dream at both 1 month and 3 months following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Using the dreams provided in this study we examined the interrater reliability of SCORS ratings, the relationship of SCORS variables to an independently rated measure of dream distortion, and the relationship of SCORS variables to participants' own ratings of dream affect. Results indicated that dreams were reliably rated using the SCORS, 3 cognitive SCORS variables were significantly related to dream distortion, and affective SCORS variables were meaningfully related to participants' own ratings of affect in their dreams. Findings from this study provide support for the application of SCORS ratings to dream narratives. We discuss implications for further research and clinical application.     

A pilot study for the analysis of dream reports using Maslow's need categories: an extension to the emotional selection hypothesis

The emotional selection hypothesis describes a cyclical process that uses dreams to modify and test select mental schemas. An extension is proposed that further characterizes these schemas as facilitators of human need satisfaction. A pilot study was conducted in which this hypothesis was tested by assigning 100 dream reports (10 randomly selected from 10 dream logs at an online web site) to one or more categories within Maslow's hierarchy of needs. A "match" was declared when at least two of three judges agreed both for category and for whether the identified need was satisfied or thwarted in the dream narrative. The interjudge reliability of the judged needs was good (92% of the reports contained at least one match). The number of needs judged as thwarted did not differ significantly from the number judged as satisfied (48 vs. 52%, respectively). The six "higher" needs (belongingness, esteem, cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualization, and transcendence) were scored significantly more frequently (81%) than were the two lowest or "basic" needs (physiological and safety, 19%). Basic needs were also more likely to be judged as thwarted, while higher needs were more likely to be judged as satisfied. These findings are discussed in the context of Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a framework for investigating theories of dream function, including the emotional selection hypothesis and other contemporary dream theories.     

A reappraisal of the Emma episode and the specimen dream

Schur's (1966, 1972) speculations that the "specimen dream" exculpates Fliess rather than Freud and that Freud was unaware of this are challenged. Schur's assertion that Freud was not aware of "current conflict" when writing The Interpretation of Dreams is countered with the previously unpublished "Completion of the Analysis" of the dream of "Running up the Stairs," which illustrates Freud's withholding of "current conflict" from his published associations. The view is advanced that Freud's and Fliess's treatment of Emma Eckstein might have been an important element in Freud's self-analysis because it was a repetition of his childhood conflicts. The identities of Emma Eckstein (operated on by Fliess) and Anna Hammerschlag Lichtheim, together with the previously unnoticed, published exchange between Abraham and Freud, are used to add further insight into Freud's interpretation of the dream. In addition, new material concerning Freud's father's terminal illness, beginning in July, 1985, casts further light on the specimen dream as well as others. It is argued that concerns about Martha Freud's sixth pregnancy and wishes for improved contraception were important determinants of the dream and part of the undisclosed associations. It is also argued that rivalrous elements of the associations are elaborated in the later non vixit dream.     

Integration of Test Results with Clinical Observations A Diagnostic Case Study

In this study, we aimed to investigate the application of an externally rated measure of interpersonal representations (Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale [SCORS]; Westen, 1995) to dream narratives. A total of 80 student participants enrolled at a private university in the New York City metropolitan area completed a Dream Log and affect adjective checklist (Wellman, 2002) based on a recalled dream at both 1 month and 3 months following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Using the dreams provided in this study we examined the interrater reliability of SCORS ratings, the relationship of SCORS variables to an independently rated measure of dream distortion, and the relationship of SCORS variables to participants' own ratings of dream affect. Results indicated that dreams were reliably rated using the SCORS, 3 cognitive SCORS variables were significantly related to dream distortion, and affective SCORS variables were meaningfully related to participants' own ratings of affect in their dreams. Findings from this study provide support for the application of SCORS ratings to dream narratives. We discuss implications for further research and clinical application.     

An investigation of the use of nocturnal dream reports as diagnostic indices in the assessment of family problem solving

This study investigated the use of series of nocturnal dream reports to diagnose patterns of family functioning. Five families (twenty one subjects) collected a total of 126 dreams. A Treatment Group consisted of two families undergoing family therapy whilst a Non-Treatment Group, comprising three families, was drawn from a population ranging from severely disturbed to superior family functioning. The manifest content of the dreams was analysed, qualitatively and quantitatively. The presenting problem, case history, therapeutic processes and outcome were unknown to the dream researcher. The family therapist was blind to the dream content and dream analysis. Each family was independently rated by the therapist and the dream researcher. The agreement between the two assessments was highly significant. In addition, the problem areas, family transactions and treatment outcome were correctly identified by the dream researcher. It was concluded that analyses of dream series reflect the problem areas encountered by a family system. Implications for therapeutic strategies are discussed.     

Dreaming

The aim is to discover a principle governing the formation of the dream. Now dreaming has an analogy with consciousness in that it is a seeming-consciousness. Meanwhile consciousness exhibits a tripartite structure consisting of (A) understanding oneself to be situated in a world endowed with given properties, (B) the mental processes responsible for the state, and (C) the concrete perceptual encounter of awareness with the world. The dream analogues of these three elements are investigated in the hope of discovering the source of the kinship between dream and consciousness. The dream world (A) proves to be a logically impossible world, limited by nothing more than sheer narratability. The internal world (B) of the dreamer is notable for the limitlessness of the scope allotted to the imagination (exactly taking over the offices of rational function), together with the presence of two important phenomena encountered in waking consciousness: a measure of interiority, and the positing of a world. Finally (C), the dream further replicates consciousness in so far as we seem in dreaming concretely to experience our physical surrounds in the form of perceptual imagining. These properties play their part in enabling the dream to be a seeming-consciousness. At the same time they are such as to necessitate its not being consciousness. It is proposed that in the light of these properties, and those composing the state of consciousness, the dream simply is the imagining of consciousness.     

Dreams of passage:: An object-relational perspective on a case of a Hindu death ritual

By examining the case of a death ritual in a Surinam-Hindu community in the Netherlands, the authors want to demonstrate the usefulness of object-relations theory in the study of religion. Because it focuses on the dynamic interaction between individual and culture, this psychological theory embraces a truly cultural-psychological approach. D.W. Winnicott's idea of ‘transitional phenomena’ is central in this respect. Cultural activities, such as participating in rituals and myths, are said to have a transitional function, when they sustain identity formation and coping with crises. Based on Arnold van Gennep's famous term ‘rites of passage’ as well as on the psychoanalyst Geza Róheim's insights into rites and myths of passage, the new term rêve de passage (dream of passage) is coined. Dreams may also have a transitional function in situations of crisis and change. As an example, we discuss the dream of one of the mourners in the case discussed. By using cultural meanings from her social and religious context—in particular, the notion of the mahapatra—the dream helps the mourner to cope with a difficult situation and to make the transition back to ordinary life. The article concludes that the concept of rêve de passage, as developed within the object-relational framework, is a promising tool for dream research in both religious studies and anthropology.     

Personality Judgment at Zero Acquaintance: Agreement,Assumed Similarity,and Implicit Simplicity

Measures of frequency of dream recall for 47 Ss and of amount of dreaming for 18 Ss, as determined by the Dement-Kleitman method, were available as part of a larger investigation of the influence of personality factors on dream recall. Rorschach Test indices obtained from these Ss were intercorrelated among themselves and correlated with the appropriate dream variable in order to assess the presumed affinity of dream phenomena and Rorschach response processes. The results were: (1) indices of fantasy predominance correlated positively with both amount of dreaming and frequency of dream recall; (2) indices of associative productivity correlated positively with frequency of dream recall; (3) an index of introspective constriction correlated negatively with frequency of dream recall. Further exploration of this area seems promising.     

I know how you felt last night,or do I? Self- and external ratings of emotions in REM sleep dreams

We investigated whether inconsistencies in previous studies regarding emotional experiences in dreams derive from whether dream emotions are self-rated or externally evaluated. Seventeen subjects were monitored with polysomnography in the sleep laboratory and awakened from every rapid eye movement (REM) sleep stage 5 min after the onset of the stage. Upon awakening, participants gave an oral dream report and rated their dream emotions using the modified Differential Emotions Scale, whereas external judges rated the participants’ emotions expressed in the dream reports, using the same scale. The two approaches produced diverging results. Self-ratings, as compared to external ratings, resulted in greater estimates of (a) emotional dreams; (b) positively valenced dreams; (c) positive and negative emotions per dream; and (d) various discrete emotions represented in dreams. The results suggest that this is mostly due to the underrepresentation of positive emotions in dream reports. Possible reasons for this discrepancy are discussed.     

Partial memory reinstatement while (lucid) dreaming to change the dream environment

Lucid dreams often coincide with having control over dream events in real-time, although the limitations of dream control are not completely understood. The current study probed the ability of lucid dreamers to reinstate waking scene memories while dreaming. After brief exposure to an experimental scene, participants were asked to reinstate the scene while lucid dreaming (i.e., change dream scenery to match real-world scene). Qualitative analysis revealed that successful dream scene reinstatements were overwhelmingly inaccurate with respect to the original experimental scene. Importantly, reinstatement inaccuracies held even when the dreamer was aware of them during the dream, suggesting a dissociation between memory access while dreaming and dream imagery. The ability to change the environment of a dream speaks to the high amount of lucid dream control, yet the inaccuracies speak to a lack of detailed control. Reinstating context during lucid sleep offers an experimental method to investigate sleep, dreams, and memory.     

Self-reported effects of dreams on waking-life creativity: an empirical study

The authors studied the self-rated effect of dreams on creativity in participants who were not selected for creative abilities. Students (N = 444) and online respondents (N = 636) answered a questionnaire about dreams and creative dreams. In addition, the students completed several personality measures and creativity scales. Results indicated that dreams that stimulated waking-life creativity played a considerable role in the lives of ordinary people (about 8% of all dreams). Examples reported by the online participants fell into 4 categories: (a) dream images used for art, work, or similar areas; (b) dreams that solved a problem; (c) dreams that provided the impetus to do something that the dreamer otherwise had difficulty doing; and (d) dreams containing emotional insights. The main factors influencing frequency of creative dreams were dream recall frequency and the thin boundaries personality dimension. Future researchers should use diary techniques to study the effects of dreams on waking life and should develop techniques to increase the frequency of creative dreams that might be valuable as aids for people in creative jobs.     

Dreamtelling as a request for containment: three uses of dreams in group therapy

This article is an attempt to develop a coherent, unified, and consistent conceptualization of dreaming and dreamtelling in the clinical setting. Dreams told in a therapeutic setting are challenging events: fantastically rich in content, but often overwhelming in their implications for peoples' relationships. When told in therapy groups, dreams provide additional challenges for all participants. Learning to work with dreams not only enhances understanding of unconscious intrapsychic and group processes, but may also have a strong impact on the therapeutic culture and working relationships in the group. After differentiating dreaming from dreamtelling, I briefly describe three uses of dreams in groups-the classical "informative" and more familiar "formative" uses, and a new perspective that focuses on the "transformative" aspects of a dream told. According to this perspective, a dream told has an interesting past, an important present, and a worthwhile future because of its interpersonal, intersubjective influence on the dreamer-audience relationship.     

On not being able to dream

In this paper, the author explores the phenomenon of not being able to dream (as opposed to not being able to remember one's dreams) from three different vantage points. First, from the point of view of psychoanalytic theory, he discusses Bion's idea that the work of dreaming creates the conscious and unconscious mind (and not the other way around). A person who cannot dream is unable to generate differentiable conscious and unconscious experience and, consequently, lives in a psychic state in which he is unable to differentiate waking from sleeping, dreaming from perceiving. The author then approaches the problem of the inability to dream from the perspective achieved by a literary work. He discusses a Borges fiction that creates, in a singularly artful way, the experience of not being able to dream. Finally, the author utilises the vantage point of a detailed account of a clinical experience to explore what it means not to be able to dream. He describes an initial state characterised by the patient's proliferation of unutilisable 'psychic noise' which, over a period of years, led to the analyst's experiencing 'reverie-deprivation' and brief periods of countertransference psychosis. Two analytic sessions are presented and discussed in which psychological work was done that contributed to an enhanced capacity on the part of both patient and analyst for genuine dreaming - both in sleep and in analytic reverie states.     

Typical dreams: stability and gender differences

Although the variability of dream content is large, typical dream themes that occur quite often and are reported by many people can be identified (e.g., being chased, falling, flying, failing an examination, being unable to find a toilet or restroom). The present study is an investigation of the stability of the rank order of the dream themes and of gender differences in the content of dreams. The authors administered A. L. Zadra and T. A. Nielsen's (1997) Typical Dream Questionnaire to 444 participants. The findings indicated that most of the 55 dream themes occurred at least once in most of the participants' lifetimes. In addition, the correlation coefficients for the rank order of the themes were very high; that is, the relative frequencies were stable. The gender differences in the present study were in line with content analytic findings; for example, men reported dreams about physical aggression more often than did women. Overall, previous research and the present data indicate that available research results of the measurement of typical dream themes are reliable and valid. The question of the meaning of these themes or the relationship between typical dream contents and waking life experiences, however, has not yet been answered and is open to future research.     

Absorption in imaginings, sex-role orientation, and the recall of dreams by males and females

Questionnaire measures of dream recall frequency, number of sensory qualities in dreams and emotion in dreams were correlated with several imaginal ability and personality variables in male and female college students. Absorption (i.e., subjects' degree of involvement in such activities as daydreaming, watching a movie, etc.) was the most important predictor of dream variables in females. In males sex-role orientation contrary to stereotype (i.e., femininity) was the only variable significantly related to a dream variable (i.e., frequency of dream recall). The implications of these sex differences for research on dream recall are discussed.     

On talking-as-dreaming

Many patients are unable to engage in waking-dreaming in the analytic setting in the form of free association or in any other form. The author has found that 'talking-as-dreaming' has served as a form of waking-dreaming in which such patients have been able to begin to dream formerly undreamable experience. Such talking is a loosely structured form of conversation between patient and analyst that is often marked by primary process thinking and apparent non sequiturs. Talking-as-dreaming superficially appears to be 'unanalytic' in that it may seem to consist 'merely' of talking about such topics as books, films, etymology, baseball, the taste of chocolate, the structure of light, and so on. When an analysis is 'a going concern,' talking-as-dreaming moves unobtrusively into and out of talking about dreaming. The author provides two detailed clinical examples of analytic work with patients who had very little capacity to dream in the analytic setting. In the first clinical example, talking-as-dreaming served as a form of thinking and relating in which the patient was able for the first time to dream her own (and, in a sense, her father's) formerly unthinkable, undreamable experience. The second clinical example involves the use of talking-as-dreaming as an emotional experience in which the formerly 'invisible' patient was able to begin to dream himself into existence. The analyst, while engaging with a patient in talking-as-dreaming, must remain keenly aware that it is critical that the difference in roles of patient and analyst be a continuously felt presence; that the therapeutic goals of analysis be firmly held in mind; and that the patient be given the opportunity to dream himself into existence (as opposed to being dreamt up by the analyst).